Two Russian citizens are accused of having used forged Romanian citizenship certificates to obtain Romanian identity documents and passports

Two Russian citizens from Moscow and Saint Petersburg have been indicted by the General Prosecutor’s Office on charges of using forged Romanian citizenship certificates to obtain Romanian identity documents and passports. Prosecutors announced on Friday, September 25, that the two were being investigated for the use of forged documents.

During 2024, the men allegedly presented Romanian authorities with citizenship certificates they claimed had been issued in 2023 by the Romanian Embassy in Bratislava. The documents were fake, and the two had never legally obtained Romanian citizenship.

The two submitted the documents to the Civil Status Service of Bucharest’s Sector 6 City Hall and requested the transcription of their Russian birth certificates. Based on the documents, they obtained identity cards and simple electronic passports. Prosecutors are seeking the annulment of the fake certificates and all documents issued on their basis. The defendants were investigated in absentia and could not be located.

The case again draws attention to networks that allegedly brokered the fraudulent acquisition of Romanian citizenship in former Soviet states. A HotNews investigation identified a company from Bashkortostan that allegedly charged 7,500 euros for such documents, using the provisions of Article 11 of the Citizenship Law. Between 2020 and 2022, 2,458 Russian citizens received Romanian citizenship under this article, while 409 cases raised suspicions of forgery.